Browsed byMonth: July 2017

The past month has been a crazy one. And we apologize for our virtual radio silence on the blog and on YouTube. But fear not, we have been recording video and we will be sharing all the details of what we’ve been up to as soon as Jim can get a video ready for you.

One year ago today, our lives changed. In such a huge way that it prompted us to take a hard look at every element of our reality. And then start over from scratch.

Well, not entirely from scratch. Our marriage provided a good foundation. And we weren’t going to get rid of Katie. But that’s about where we drew the line. The three of us, our family, was all we needed from the life we once live.

When most people lose their job (or leave their job), they simply find a new job, cut some corners until income and expenses level back out and proceed forward. Changing jobs is generally a minor blip, a bump in the road. It’s not often a reason to sell your house and all of your belongings and move onto a sailboat in another state.

But I’ve never been much like most people. I always take the road less traveled. I zig when everyone else zags and the idea of simply finding a new job and moving forward at the pace we were going was exhausting. For me, leaving (losing) my job was an excuse to try something new, something different, something more adventurous.

So here we are. Fast forward one year, and Jim and I (and Katie) live on a sailboat in the Pacific Northwest. If you had told me a year and one day ago that this is where I’d be right now, I would have laughed in your face.

We spend our time working for ourselves, building our own businesses (Life at Six Knots and our wedding photography business), and sailing whenever we can. We’ve made new friends, created new daily routines, and we are, quite simply, loving life.

We weren’t sure living tiny was going to work for us. Can anyone truly be sure of something like that without trying it first? We downsized from 1500 square feet of house to somewhere in the region of 250 square feet of boat. And that space is not only our living quarters, but our office as well.

But tiny living does suit us. I love that we use every square inch of our space. I love that we don’t have cluttered closets and piles of things we need to find homes for. I love that all I really need to do my job is my camera, my laptop and some internet connection. Oh, and a steady stream of coffee, but that’s a different story.

And though its hard as hell, I love self-employment. I love that I don’t sit at a desk working for someone else. I love that I create my own schedule, that I can start at 10 am and work until 8 pm if I want to. Or I can take a Wednesday off and work on Saturday. Or stop working at 2 pm and then start again at 6. There’s so much freedom in it, even though I work probably twice as many hours as I did when I worked for someone else. Those hours are all mine.

I used to worry that my life was doomed to be stuck in the rut of working a job I didn’t enjoy, living in a town I didn’t feel a connection to and waiting the days away until I could go on my next vacation. But all it takes is one moment, one sentence, one snap decision to send your life into a completely different, completely awesome new direction. As long as you have the courage to let it.

Have you ever done a complete 180 in life? Tell us about it!

Cheers!

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